In an interview with NBC News on Sunday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said President Joe Biden had recently threatened to withhold offensive weapons from Israel in the event of a full-scale attack on Rafah, a city in the southern Gaza Strip. I was asked about that. More than 1.4 Palestinians have been evacuated.
When asked by an interviewer what exactly Biden's “red lines should not be crossed” and “what would trigger him to say, 'I'm withholding arms right now,'” Blinken said: replied: “When it comes to Israel, we don't talk about red lines that shouldn't be crossed.”
This was an odd statement, to say the least, since Biden himself has talked about red lines not to be crossed when it comes to Israel. In an interview with CNN last week, the president, with his characteristic eloquence, laid out the latest red line to avoid: [the Israelis] Enter Rafah – they haven't entered Rafah yet – if they do enter Rafah, I will use the weapons that have historically been used to deal with cities to deal with Rafah. We don't supply — we address the problem. ”
It's definitely clear.
It turns out that was also the ostensible purpose of Mr. Blinken's NBC intervention. After announcing, “Let me be clear,'' the Secretary went on to explain: “What the president said is that if Israel were to launch a major military operation, there are certain systems in Rafah to support that effort that we would not provide to Israel in that case.”
In other words, it's probably a red line.
However, even the US government does not seem to know its policy regarding Rafah, although officials have been fairly consistent in ignoring the fact that Israel has been conducting “large-scale military operations” in Rafah for years. It seems that they are working on it. It has been carried out in the rest of the Gaza Strip since October 7th.
After all, there is no such thing as selective genocide. And the idea that Mr. Rafah has somehow been spared the ongoing U.S.-backed massacres of the past seven-plus months is patently absurd.
Officially, more than 35,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli war, but the true death toll is undoubtedly much higher, given the number of bodies buried under rubble or missing. There are many The US's sudden public concern for civilians in Rafah, many of whom had been forced to flee to Rafah from other parts of Gaza, explains why Palestinian civilians should not have crossed the line in the first place. This raises the obvious question:
Recall that just last month, more than six months after the genocide, the US Congress approved $26 billion in supplemental wartime aid to Israel. Of course, this funding is in addition to the billions of dollars the United States already sends to the country each year.
On May 8, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin confirmed that the Biden administration had suspended the shipment of 3,500 bombs to Israel over concerns about the Rafah attack, saying the suspension would have no effect on the $26 billion. It was carefully stated that it would not affect And despite a recent State Department report finding that U.S.-supplied weapons were likely used in a manner “inconsistent” with international law, continued arms transfers to Israel paved the way for
So much for the line that shouldn't be crossed: the idea that Biden is somehow taking a hard line on Israel.
Meanwhile, US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew stressed that only one “pack of ammunition” had been suspended and that “everything else is going well,” which meant that “nothing fundamental has changed.” “There is no such thing,” he said. In the relationship between the United States and Israel.
Furthermore, the ambassador noted that the Israeli military has not yet initiated any actions required in Rafah to provoke US opposition. The US continues to claim that Israeli operations in and around the city of Rafah are of a “limited” nature, despite all measures and bloody evidence to the contrary. The Times of Israel quoted Lou as saying that so far Operation Rafah “has not reached areas where we have disagreements.” I hope we don't end up in a real disagreement. ”
But if you agree that genocide in general is basically OK, what else do you disagree with? It would be nice if U.S. officials could agree on what official policy is.
In honor of the current scene in Washington, the Axios news website has compiled a predictably concise “History of U.S. Presidents Who Draw Red Lines with Israel,” which includes all U.S. heads of state except Biden. There are exactly three names listed. One of them was Ronald Reagan, who delayed the shipment of two F-16 fighter jets to Israel in 1981, but whose own administration became increasingly divided over Israel policy.
The following year, after apparently interpreting America's mixed signals as a green light, Israel invaded Lebanon with the help of American weapons and massacred tens of thousands of Lebanese and Palestinians. Over a three-day period in September 1982 alone, Israeli forces oversaw the Sabra and Shatila massacres of up to thousands of civilians and refugees on the outskirts of the Lebanese capital Beirut.
What does it mean to “draw a red line”?
More than 40 years later, the relationship between the United States and Israel remains as special as ever, despite the contradictory rhetoric that continues to be spewed from America's political establishment. Ultimately, the confusion over whether there is a line that should not be crossed in Rafah stems from the reality that, despite constant noise about Israeli overreach, the United States remains fully complicit in the genocide. It helps draw attention away.
Meanwhile, the illusion that there was any meaningful rift between the United States and Israel's partners in crime is reinforced by suggestions on the right-wing sides of both countries that Biden and Hamas are hopelessly in love with each other. It's a disservice that Biden & Co.'s carnage appears to have been slightly toned down.
And while contradictory conversations continue in Washington, Israel continues to kill.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of Al Jazeera.
